Lauren Long/The Post-StandardParade goers slap hands with members of the San Diego Padres as they tour downtown Cooperstown Monday before the scheduled 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame Game against the Chicago Cubs at Doubleday Field. The game canceled due to heavy rain and hail. This was the last scheduled Hall of Fame game involving major league players in Cooperstown, a tradition that began there almost 70 years ago.

The final Baseball Hall of Fame Game is rained out -- and won't return.

Lucia Colone grew up with an occasional home run crashing into her house.

Once a year, the lords of baseball would send two major league teams to Doubleday Field, the postcard vista ballpark on the other side of her family's backyard fence. Kids would lean a ladder to the wall and peep over it, a Norman Rockwell painting turned real.

Monday, the tradition ended.

The annual Baseball Hall of Fame Game, a Cooperstown rite since 1940, officially went the way of the barrel-handled bat and Sunday doubleheader. A heavy rain scratched Monday's game before a pitch could be thrown, just as Major League Baseball early this year canceled the tradition before fans could fully mobilize.

"We're all going to miss it," said Colone, who was awaiting a family reunion and perhaps one final broken window from a baseball.

In January, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced that the game would no longer be held after his year. Baseball officials gave no specifics but generally blamed the teams' hectic schedules. The Hall of Fame Game, an exhibition, has for years become a home run derby and public appearance by the star players, who would quickly be replaced by minor leaguers.

Refunds

Ticket holders to Monday's game can receive a full refund. Fans should send name, address and ticket stub to Cooperstown Baseball Committee, P.O. Box 590, Cooperstown 13326. Refunds should take four to six weeks to be processed.

Monday's game was supposed to pit the Chicago Cubs against the San Diego Padres. It was called after a 36-minute rain delay, bringing the event full circle: The first games, in 1940 and 1941, were shortened by rain.

From that start, the game brought dozens of the sport's greatest stars to Cooperstown, long before their induction into the Hall of Fame. Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Jackie Robinson played at their prime on that same field where Padres pitcher and future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux walked Monday.

The Padres arrived Sunday night, early enough to take part in Monday's traditional parade. Thousands of fans turned Main Street into a sea of baseball hats, shirts and jerseys. The major leaguers rode in an open-air trolley, waving to the cheering fans.

They seemed to relish the visit.

Maddux called Cooperstown "a cool place."

His teammate, pitcher Jake Peavy, called the demise of the Hall of Fame Game "a big loss."

Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who had earlier bemoaned the loss of an off-day for his team, said a day in Cooperstown "is not going to kill us."

But Piniella had not wanted to play. Sunday, the Cubs played a day game in Toronto and could have flown into Albany, as the Padres did, to be in Cooperstown Sunday night.

Instead, he chose to stay in Toronto overnight and leave for Cooperstown at 7:30 a.m.

The team arrived just in time for the tail end of the parade. Players walked onto the field at 1:08 p.m., 22 minutes before the home run derby was to supposed to start. It, too, was rained out.

"We're in a tough stretch of games on the road and a lot of games this month," Piniella said. "Truthfully, if I had my druthers, we'd have the day off."

The Cubs have one off day this month, with most of their games on the road.

Neither team had planned to play its stars Monday. The Padres' starting lineup included two regulars. The Cubs never announced a lineup.

The Padres, who played in Cleveland Sunday afternoon, arrived in Cooperstown Sunday night and took a private tour of the Hall of Fame Museum.

"When you look at the schedule in spring training and see the (Hall of Fame Game) and you know you're going to lose an off day, you say, 'I don't want to go,'" Maddux said. "But once you're here, it's great that we're here."

Peavy said it was a thrill to tour the museum with Maddux and Padres relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman, another likely Hall of Famer. Peavy said Cooperstown reminded him of the small towns in his home state of Alabama.

"We're closer to the fans here than anywhere else we go," Peavy said. "There's nothing like this in the major leagues."

Would he tell that to the union?

"It's hard to say," he said. "We were supposed to have an off day in New York City, and it would be a chance for guys to spend time with their families. We don't get too many off days and you need to get away from the game for a while."

The game has always been played on the same field built in 1920 at the exact spot where, a disputed legend has it, Abner Doubleday invented the sport. The park has the dimensions of a high school field: dugouts so low that a player hits his head if he stands straight up; a fence just 296 feet down the left field line.

Monday's game, a sellout of 9,791, brought fans from across the country who bought tickets through a lottery.

"As far as I'm concerned, we pay the bills for all these players," said Charles Kewin, 49, of Norwich. "I feel like this game should be kept. It's simple. It's fun. It's at the heart of the purity of the game."

As for the notion that the game is hard on players' schedules?

"I say they should try my occupation for a week, and they could see that it's a drag," said Kewin, a dry wall contractor. "These guys get paid millions of dollars, they're off four, maybe five months a year. They're traveling, staying in nice hotels, air-conditioned. I just don't feel sorry for them."

At least one group is vowing to continue fighting to keep the game.

"There are people out there who care about this," said Kristian Connolly, 30, a Cooperstown native, who has launched a Web site, savethefamegame.com. "It's just a matter of reaching them."

Connolly's group marched in Monday's parade. It was limited to 20 marchers, because organizers didn't want the parade to stretch too long. His group, holding a big "Save the Game" banner, drew large roars as it passed the crowd.

But the group's planned protest -- a complete half-inning "moment of silence" by the crowd -- never got a chance. The violent storm that hit Syracuse earlier sent fans running for cover, pelted the slow-moving with hail and cut the power for several minutes.

After MLB announced the game's cancellation in January, Connolly wrote letters to the commissioner, players' union leader Donald Fehr and selected players and front office representatives from all 30 clubs. No players wrote back.

Connolly said he recently received a letter from Detroit Tigers President Dave Dombrowski, which said the players union negotiated the change in its recent contract.

Monday, Colone said she could not count the number of balls that have landed in her family's yard over the years. Last year, one cracked the siding. The Hall of Fame compensated them and even supplies security guards to keep out people who come chasing after the balls.

"Sometimes, their judgment is impaired," she said.

Colone said she hopes baseball comes up with a replacement for the game. She'd welcome a few more balls landing in the yard. But an era has ended.

"This has pretty much sunken in," she said.

Matt Michael can be reached at mmichael@syracuse.com and 470-3085; Hart Seely can be reached at hseely@syracuse.com and 470-2247.